Air Force proposal sought gay aphrodisiac weapon

[savafan]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...htgaysexweapon

SUMMARY: The Pentagon once looked into making a weapon that would render enemy troops sexually attracted to one another, according to a document obtained by a watchdog group.



The Pentagon briefly looked into making a weapon that would render enemy troops sexually attracted to one another, according to an official document uncovered by a watchdog group that monitors research into biological and chemical weapons.

The proposed aphrodisiac was part of a weapons development plan circulated in 1994 at the U.S. Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. An outline of the plan was discovered by the Sunshine Project and posted on its Web site.

The six-year plan included development of several "non-lethal" chemical weapons, including one that would inflict "severe and lasting halitosis" in enemy combatants and a "sting me/attack me" chemical that would cause bees to become more aggressive.

The aphrodisiac chemical would be designed to make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other. The resulting widespread homosexual behavior, the proposal suggests, would cause a "distasteful but completely non-lethal blow" to morale.

A spokesman for the Department of Defense stressed that the 1994 outline was strictly a proposal that was never approved.

"None of the systems, including the alleged sex bomb, have been developed, nor were they ever considered up for development," Lt. Col. Barry Venable told the PlanetOut Network on Friday.

The proposal estimated that the cost of the project over six years would top $7 million.

Edward Hammond of the Sunshine Project said he has seen several dozen similar military weapons proposals, but this 1994 Air Force plan was the only one he knew about that specifically addressed an anti-gay weapon. He added, however, that the sentiment behind the proposed weapon is not uncommon in the military.

"Humiliating your enemy with gay sex sounds a lot like what happened at Abu Ghraib," Hammond said, referring to the prisoner abuse scandal that was uncovered last year in Iraq.

Steve Ralls, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), said, "It is a homophobic and delusional proposition for the Pentagon to assume a gay opponent is any less formidable than a straight one."

Ralls also said that the SLDN, which is fighting the U.S. military's ban on openly gay military personnel, would look into the matter and would consider asking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to repudiate the proposal.

[pedro]

Here's a little more from the BBC. Apparently they also pondered a fart bomb. Brilliant.

link

US military pondered love not war
US Air Force B-52 bomber
The unconventional proposals were made by the US Air Force
The US military investigated building a "gay bomb", which would make enemy soldiers "sexually irresistible" to each other, government papers say.

Other weapons that never saw the light of day include one to make soldiers obvious by their bad breath.

The US defence department considered various non-lethal chemicals meant to disrupt enemy discipline and morale.

The 1994 plans were for a six-year project costing $7.5m, but they were never pursued.

The US Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, sought Pentagon funding for research into what it called "harassing, annoying and 'bad guy'-identifying chemicals".

The plans were obtained under the US Freedom of Information by the Sunshine Project, a group which monitors research into chemical and biological weapons.

'Who? Me?'

The plan for a so-called "love bomb" envisaged an aphrodisiac chemical that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among troops, causing what the military called a "distasteful but completely non-lethal" blow to morale.

Scientists also reportedly considered a "sting me/attack me" chemical weapon to attract swarms of enraged wasps or angry rats towards enemy troops.

A substance to make the skin unbearably sensitive to sunlight was also pondered.

Another idea was to develop a chemical causing "severe and lasting halitosis", so that enemy forces would be obvious even when they tried to blend in with civilians.

In a variation on that idea, researchers pondered a "Who? Me?" bomb, which would simulate flatulence in enemy ranks.

Indeed, a "Who? Me?" device had been under consideration since 1945, the government papers say.

However, researchers concluded that the premise for such a device was fatally flawed because "people in many areas of the world do not find faecal odour offensive, since they smell it on a regular basis".

Captain Dan McSweeney of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate at the Pentagon said the defence department receives "literally hundreds" of project ideas, but that "none of the systems described in that [1994] proposal have been developed".

He told the BBC: "It's important to point out that only those proposals which are deemed appropriate, based on stringent human effects, legal, and international treaty reviews are considered fordevelopment or acquisition."

[RedsBaron]

I've read of the crazy proposals supposedly made in the 1960s regarding Fidel Castro, including doing something to make his beard fall off.
My international relations class college professor claimed someone had proposed that America depress Russian morale by shipping into the Soviet Union extra-large condoms in boxes labeled "USA-small."

[REDREAD]

[Redsland]

These were going to be dropped in secret by the U-2.

They were called the You-Hoo!

[Chip R]

So was this like a mock Pentagon from a junior high school?

[pedro]

So was this like a mock Pentagon from a junior high school?

yes chip. it was.

as a matter of fact they also were also going to create a "booger gun" and a "wedgie bomb" that would emit a gas that would shrink a man's underwear on contact.

[HotCorner]